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Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#21

Post by [deleted] »

zump wrote: post #19
quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

Interesting, I've heard the opposite about the game industry. But I suppose you need to join an AAA studio. But it makes sense that a game would live and die by the performance of the rendering engine for example. EDIT: I heard Valve engineers make serious coin.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#22

Post by trome »

quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

On the flipside, quite a few developers working in that industry are getting paid peanuts since there are so many people looking to work in that industry.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#25

Post by marclittlemore »

quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

> It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract.

While having profit share in a game developer's contract is sometimes true, I'd say that it's definitely not a common occurrence to earn that much money. Profit share is based on royalties made after paying back development costs and the game being extremely successful. Due to rising development costs, and most games not being multi-million sellers, most developers earn minimal bonuses beyond their contractual wages, from my experience of the industry.

I'm based in the UK and wrote console games for 19 years. I'm estimating that I saw around £15k in game related bonuses over that time. I did hear rumours of the Tomb Raider team getting a £40k bonus back in the mid 90s but I'm not sure if that was true.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#26

Post by shubhamjain »

patio11 wrote: post #4

Most of the more straightforward answers to this question end up with you making the majority of that million from your entrepreneurial skills rather than software development skills. (For example, "Found a software development consultancy and grow it to 8~12 employees.") In terms of straight up W-2ing without taking entrepreneurial levels of risk, I think you're looking at either finance or (restricting 25% to ~10%)…

> (restricting 25% to ~10%) AppAmaGooBookSoft

I would even be skeptical of the ~10% estimate. Even accounting for contributions in cash machines like AdX and Adwords, commanding one million dollars in engineer's pay seems to be a matter of having a rare set of skills in working on outrageously difficult problems (deep learning, managing complex networks, or large-scale cloud computing setups).

I am not too sold about cashing on "creating business value". It's not like Google lacks technical expertise to understand the scale of their problems. Likely, if you are working amongst super-technically-able people, the only way to reach that figure is pushing yourself to gain expertise in a valuable domain or move into management where your product decisions have a direct impact.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#28

Post by austinjp »

Talent, grit, luck. All are important, only some can be optimised.

Why engineering? If money is so important to you there might be other industries better suited.

You sound Machiavellian, or that you may edge towards it. Be careful with that. Money is no good if it can't buy you what you want or need.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#29

Post by marclittlemore »

adamnemecek wrote: post #20
quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

This is the first time I'm hearing about the game industry cuts, I've only ever heard that the salaries were lower compared with other programming fields. Does everyone on the team get a cut or only from a certain level of seniority?

From my experience, the percentage share of the profit was normally based on time at the company and seniority of role. It was normally given to everyone who worked in the team but as I said in another comment, actually seeing a large profit related bonus was rare.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#30

Post by quasiuna »

quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

You can see the kinds of bonuses involved with big game launches with all of the legal action around call of duty: http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2012/05/23/call-of-duty-devs-ne...
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